


Hope

by semele



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 16:39:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13104249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: Some time ago, the Delinquents and some adults broke away from Camp Jaha to start a separate village. Now is their second winter in the new settlement, and they decide they need to organize themselves a holiday.





	Hope

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is what happens when I decide to write myself a nice, fluffy Christmas fic, and then go too deep into describing Delinquents' new village and its economy... Also, this is very loosely based on canon, everyone who died after s2 lives, and I only have a vague idea of what happens in canon past s2, so I guess please enjoy some fluff with heaps of village economy. I promise it's less boring than it sounds.
> 
> This is to wish all the wonderful people in #blayesnetwork wonderful holidays, and the best New Year <33333\. You are all the sunshines of my online existence, and I hope you know just how much _better_ you make everything. Thank you for being an inspiration! P.S. Shout-out to the Salt Squad :).

It’s not like anyone knows what date it is, exactly.

Okay, that’s a lie. Sinclair is probably keeping count, just for the hell of it, even if everyone did away with clocks months ago, out of sheer impracticality of them. Meals happen when they’re ready, no one has enough wood to waste for torches to work after dark, and it’s not like anyone misses measuring exactly how long their toilet breaks take. In comparison to clocks, Sinclair’s calendar is just harmless fun, something that makes him feel more hopeful as he logs day after day on a little handheld he and Raven probably keep charged with sheer combined force of their wills, because they sure don’t do it with electricity.

So it’s not like no one knows, but Bellamy certainly doesn’t. There is, he finds, certain freedom in letting go of numbers and just watching the world around him as he slowly learns to tell time on his own. What he’s learning now is: days are getting colder, shorter and more desperate; they still haven’t learned how to deal with snow properly, and they have a lot less food than they’d like. He can tell by how thin and angry Raven grows, how protective she becomes of every morsel she believes belongs to her or to him. They need more, it’s as simple as that. They need more, and they need it fast.

And maybe they also need something else.

***

To be fair, the idea of some kind of a winter festival isn’t new to anyone in the village. No matter how poor they were on the Ark, they all had some movies, and you couldn’t exactly escape one of the overwhelming themes.

“It’s beautiful and simple,” sums up Miller one night, as he tries to warm his hands on a mug of some herbal concoction Lincoln swears by. “Everything is dark, damp, and miserable, so let’s get drunk and possibly fuck until we feel better about it. I’d be game.”

Nathan Miller is nothing if not subtle.

They are all huddled in the common hall, a wooden hut they built last summer and are now keeping heated at all cost, because at least that’s something they can do, as opposed to making sure they can provide enough firewood for every single dwelling. Now whoever falls short on fuel or can’t get a fire going on a given night just grabs their bedding and comes here, problem solved, even if it gets a little crowded some nights. It’s fine. They more people come, the easier it is to keep warm.

Tonight a sudden snowfall surprised Bellamy and Miller on their way from the woods, and whatever they brought needs to dry properly before it can be burned, so here they are now: Bellamy and Raven, Monty and Miller, together with Miller senior, Sinclair, Lincoln, Octavia and Roma, huddled together while the damp firewood they relied on rests spread out by the wall. This part isn’t so bad. It would have been a lot worse last year.

“Correct if crude,” says Sinclair dryly when Miller’s speech sounds out. Miller gives him a cheeky grin.

“We should do something like that,” he offers, since he’s apparently on a roll. “It’s not like we have anything to do until the snow melts.”

“Speak for yourself, asshole,” chimes in Raven angelically, and Sinclair lets out a hum in assent. This much is fair. The workshops are as busy as they always are, even if they have to cut their work short in the afternoon, no rest for the wicked. All three of their tech people, Raven, Sinclair and Monty, have to rely on others for basic supplies almost all year round, because they work is simply too important for the community for them to get distracted with picking berries. Of course they don’t take a break just because there is snow.

“Yeah, well. Still,” responds Miller with a shrug. “I spent most of yesterday scratching my ass after I finished shovelling snow off the pathways. Might as well hang out some tinsel, or whatever the fuck that is.”

What he doesn’t say: no one has the energy to work very hard, but when you do nothing at all, you think about the dwindling food supply way too much.

“I’d do it,” says Roma into the silence, and Bellamy guesses they must actually be way past December, because Sinclair just nods instead of offering a timeline. All things considered, who cares?

By the time they all doze off in their blanket pile, they have most of the plan in place.

***

The first surprise, for Bellamy, is how easy it is to convince everyone to participate. The date is arbitrarily set for two weeks from now, enough time to prepare everything if they start right away, and it’s like new energy gets into their people as soon as they agree on a plan. The feast, they tell themselves, will be a lot of work, but they can pull it off if they start hunting and setting snares right away, come on, one last effort. They deserve a holiday, and this desire to have one nice day suddenly beats the weeks of failed hunting trips slowly eating at the morale. So they failed the last twenty times they tried to bring in game in bulk, but this time, they are doing it for a special occasion. Of course they will be lucky. 

When Bellamy jumps off the crate he stepped on to address everyone, he almost believes this himself.

There are a few Grounder families in the village by now, moved in over the months since the Delinquent with a few adults broke away from Camp Jaha, and it’s their children who get trusted with picking small pine branches and cones, then hanging them in clumsy chains and wreaths all over the village. It looks weird, until Bellamy comes back from the first pre-holiday hunting trip, and the smell and greenery hit him, it seems, square in the chest, making him laugh like he is a child himself. Later that day, he sees Raven get picked up by Miller so she can reach over the common hall’s door, to a shabby sheet of metal from the Ark with fourteen nails hammered into it in a straight line, and hang a pine cone on one of the nails, marking another day in their countdown until the feast day. When she comes back down, and high-fives Miller as if they just reached some tremendous milestone, Bellamy feels warmer than he has for days.

***

He tries to read up on what used to be done in the past, back when people had rooms filled with light and heated with a press of a button, but most of it flies way over his head, and in the end, he just doesn’t bother. Lincoln and other Grounders, he knows, have some traditions, but they’re different from tribe to tribe, and they don’t even know which ones they would apply now, given the awkward and impromptu timing of whatever their holiday even is. He heard people calling it The Winter Feast, and it’s not a bad name, all things considered.

Maybe this is better. There are other holidays in the year to mark where everyone comes from. This one, it seems, is all about what they built together.

So instead of looking at books, Bellamy looks at the people around him, and when he takes them all in, it’s the first time since he hit the ground that it doesn’t taste like blood.

A week into preparations, he finds himself in the workshops, tears of laughter in his eyes while Monty and Sinclair barely hold it together because the kids _really_ got into decorating, and a large picture of Raven saving the world made out of pine needles glued to the wall with something unspeakable is a sight to behold.

***

The last few days are the definition of hectic, and it’s mostly Bellamy’s own fault. He’s been so concerned about getting enough food for the feast that he gleefully blew all his other duties just to go out hunting and gathering as much as possible. Now that the kitchen team is working on processing the fresh haul, Bellamy comes back to a mountain of sewing and mending, because apparently everyone wants to look their best for the feast, and they won’t take no for an answer.

“You should take an apprentice,” suggests Raven in the evening, when he is trying to rub the pain out of his fingers, and she earns herself an ugly look. 

“Kettle, pot,” points out Bellamy, and Raven fakes throwing a screwdriver at her.

It’s their first night alone together after a week, because Bellamy has been too busy for firewood runs, and they kept ending up in the common hall night after night. Tonight was supposed to be just the same, except Raven had different plans, and asked Miller for a holiday favor. When Bellamy came back from the workshop, he found a fire blazing and Raven wearing way fewer clothes than he is used to at this time of the year. Now she comes closer to the stool he’s sitting on, and steps between his legs, so he can press his head against her stomach, and let out a tired sigh when she strokes the back of his neck. 

Later, when they’re resting together, naked and breathless, enjoying the rare sensation of skin against skin, Bellamy whispers a few excited words about an idea he’s just had, and when Raven starts making fun of his pillow talk, he is so happy he could burst.

***

By the time their Winter Feast comes by, there are little bits popping up that were never discussed in the original plan, but somehow, they made the whole thing even better. Bellamy just needs a few conversations with Lincoln and Sinclair about his idea, and then in the morning before the main celebrations, he gathers all the Ark and Grounder kids aged twelve or over, and lets them roam the workshops that are usually locked to them. Now they get to see it all, the three mechanics’ workstations, Bellamy’s sewing spot, Lincoln’s apothecary, Monty and Jasper’s greenhouse with brewery, the kitchens, Grounder Karla’s loom and spinning wheel. Once the snow melts and we go to a fair, Lincoln explains to one of the teenagers, we will go to a fair and try to tempt more people to come in; a blacksmith, or maybe someone who can work in leather. Even if they just stay for a season, someone from the village can learn their trade, and carry it on.

Just like Bellamy expected, visiting results in conversations, and those lead to promises; by midday, most workshop have at least one apprentice each, and they can be formally celebrated during the feast this evening. Those who were too shy or undecided have a whole year to think about it, and on the next Winter Feast, they will chose a trade or they won’t; not everyone needs to be trained, but if they want to thrive, some people definitely do, and this is a good way to start. Let the kids try, instead of being assigned.

In the evening, the common hall is full of light and unexpected music; there is enough food to fill everyone’s belly, and Monty even broke out a bit of booze that he’s been hiding for a rainy day. The building can barely fit everyone, let alone their tables, so they just sit on the ground, with blankets spread under them for warmth, and pass around morsels of food, laughing and teasing until they feel lighter, not so worn out by the season and its hardships. When Bellamy gets up to toast the new apprentices, and announce that, after two weeks of frantic hunting and gathering, their ice house is stocked full with food, he gets a loud cheer that’s so full of hope it seems to seep into their very walls, make everything just a little bit brighter.

Maybe, he thinks as he looks around him, and catches a glimpse of the excited if still starstruck face of Raven’s new apprentice, this whole mess of a village has always been all about hope.


End file.
